My mother was the worst kind of stage mother. She would make me and my younger sister and brother little duckling costumes and put us in kiddie shows.

When a human being without amplification makes a sound that is high and loud, it is almost unworldly.

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America.

We are unique, each human voice, not because we are completely self-generated, but because of who we choose to assemble the countless factors that made us.

We sing with the entire body. The sounds that we make emanate not just from the head, but from the whole heart and soul, and, most important, the gut.

I don't want to be somebody who stands still and sings pretty. Each song is a world. Each song is a story. I don't achieve nearly what I want.

Everybody's a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. I mean, I've never arrived. I'm still learning all the time.

There's no performance where I never have to think about setting up a phrase or making a technical adjustment while I'm performing.

Someone once said that there are probably seven naturally good singing days in a year-and those are days you won't be booked. What we must learn is how to sing through all the other days.

It is our responsibility to learn how to speak to an audience that is less informed about music, to give it a reason to want to come and see us instead of going to the movies.

I don't want to record anything unless it can be great and genuinely interesting.

Heroes are the most wanted and most needed people in the world.

Tell ya mama to stop flirtin' boy, I'm not a good step-pop. I interrupt your little session...and wreck shop.

When I look at tricks, I look at Michael Vick.

Joseph Campbell, who when asked what spiritual practice he followed said, "I underline books." Me too.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

Some young folks have wind-fall minds, prematurely detached from the tree of knowledge for a life-long sourness and pettiness.

Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.

Do Tasmanian devils really exist?

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?